Configure features of an information management policy

Site administrators may have access to all or some of the following features depending on which information management features have been enabled in Central Administration. You may also have additional custom features that have been created specifically for your organization.

Learn about the label policy feature

The label policy feature enables site administrators to create uniform labels for 2007 Microsoft Office system documents. Labels are useful for ensuring that information about document properties is attached to a document when it is printed. Item properties stored in columns, such as file name, author, creation date, status, project name, and schedule information, can be included in a label.

By default, labels are displayed in the document header; however, end users can insert a label anywhere in the document by using the Insert tab in 2007 Office release programs, such as Microsoft Office Word 2007, Microsoft Office Excel 2007, and Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007. Labels are applied to all documents to which that policy is applied.

Policy administrators can determine the following label attributes:

What information to include in the label, such as metadata defined in item columns as well as hard-coded text and formatting characters. Labels can contain up to ten column references, each of which can be up to 255 characters long.

The label format, including its overall height and width, text style, font, and size, line breaks, and tabs. By default, the label height is one inch, but label height can be set from .25 to 20 inches. Label width can be from .25 to 20 inches. Label text is always vertically centered within the label image.

Whether 2007 Office release programs prompt end users to insert a label before a document is saved or printed, or whether the label can be manually added at the discretion of the end user. Users are also able to delete a label from a document if needed.

Whether the label content should be locked when it is first added to a document, or whether it can be updated as column information changes. Labels are only locked when all required metadata is present on the label.

Add labels to a policy

To ensure that a label is always added to a document, select the check box Prompt users to insert a label before saving or printing.

Note: All settings apply to the entire label. You may need to adjust either the text formatting or the label size to ensure that the text displays properly.

Clear this check box if the label policy is optional and you want end users to manually insert a label into their documents.

To lock a label so that it cannot be changed, even if column information changes, select the check box, Prevent changes to labels after they are added.

To allow label changes when information in the column settings changes, clear this check box.

In the Label Format box, type the text of the label as you want it to be displayed.

Type the names of the columns that you want displayed in the order in which you want them to appear in the label. Enclose column names in curly braces ({ }) as shown on the page.

If desired, you can type a column identifier outside the braces as shown in the example on the page.

To add a line break to a label, type \n in the label box where you want the line break to appear.

To add a tab, type \t in the label field where you want the text indented.

In the Appearance section, select the text formatting for the label. Be sure to use a font and font style that will be available on end-users' computers. The font size also will affect how much text can be displayed on the label.

In the Label Size section, type the height and width of the label. Label height can be from .25 to 20 inches long and label width can be from .25 to 20 inches wide. Label text is always vertically centered within the label image.

Click Refresh to preview the label content.

Make sure that your text fits into the label height and width specified. Text that is too large for the label will not be displayed.

Note: Actual column values will not be displayed in the preview.

Click OK to apply the label feature to the policy.

Troubleshooting labels

To ensure that labels print correctly, check the following:

All columns that are listed in the label format exist in the document library.

Label content is not longer than the length of the label.

Text formatting (such as font style) is valid. If formatting parameters are invalid or refer to fonts that don't exist on the client system, a label is created, but uses the default formatting values.

If some of the metadata values currently required for the label are not yet filled in, a notification dialog is displayed telling users that some of the metadata required for the label is missing. Users can go to the Document Information Panel to fill in the missing metadata.

Add event auditing to a policy

The auditing feature of site collection policy enables companies to create and analyze audit trails for their documents as well as for nondocument list items, such as task lists, issues lists, discussion groups, and calendars. The feature provides an audit log that records events, such as when content is viewed, edited, published, and so on. When auditing is enabled in a policy, policy administrators can view the audited data in Excel-based policy usage reports, which summarize current usage. You can review each report to review how information is being used within the organization. Audit log reports can help organizations verify and document regulatory compliance or investigate potential concerns.

On the Edit Policy page, in the Auditing section, select the Enable auditing check box, and then select the check boxes next to the events you want to keep an audit trail for.

Click OK to apply the auditing feature to the policy.

When auditing is enabled, events related to items covered by this policy will be listed in the log. To view the audit logs, on the Site Settings page, click Audit log reports, and then select the report that you have set up.

Note: Auditing provides information on when an item is changed, but not the details of what has changed. Thus, it should not be considered as a document versioning or backup tool.

Add barcodes to a policy

Barcodes are particularly useful for managing physical records because they provide a way to track nondigital assets, such as printed documents, and physical items, such as products, prototypes, and computer hardware. Unlike labels, barcodes do not display information about the item, so sensitive information can be safely stored online and associated with hardcopy or physical items without disclosing the information.

When barcodes are enabled as part of a policy, they are added to document properties and displayed in the header area of the document to which the barcode is applied. Like labels, barcodes can also be manually removed from a document.

You can specify whether users should be prompted to include the barcode when printing or saving an item or if the barcode should be inserted manually using the Insert tab in 2007 Office release programs.

The barcode policy generates Code 39 standard barcodes. Each barcode image includes text below the barcode symbol that represents the barcode value. This enables the barcode data to be used even when scanning hardware is not available. Users can manually type the barcode number into the Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 search box to locate the item on a site.

On the Edit Policy page, in the Barcodes section, select the Enable Barcodes check box.

To prompt users to insert these barcodes into documents, select the Prompt users to insert a barcode before saving or printing check box.

Add item retention and expiration features to a policy

When enabled, the expiration policy searches the site collection to find those items that have exceeded the retention period. What happens to those items depends how your system has been set up to handle items that have exceeded their retention period. For example, items can be moved to the recycle bin, an expiration workflow can be started, or a customized process can be performed.

The expiration policy is enabled by setting both a retention period and an expiration action.

On the Edit Policy page, select the Enable Expiration check box to establish how to dispose of content that is managed by this policy.

Select a retention period option to specify when documents will be set to expire. This can also be expressed in a separate workflow or a custom retention formula.

To set the expiration date based on a date property, click A time period based on the item's properties, and then select the action and the time period (days, months, or years). Type a number in the box between the lists to define the time period.

Notes:

When you're creating a policy as part of a content type, you can select any date property defined in that content type to use as an expiration value.

These options are only available when you are creating a site collection policy.

To use a workflow or custom retention formula to determine expiration, click Set programmatically.

Define what actions you want to happen when the document expires.

To enable a predefined action (such as delete), click Perform this action, and then select an action from the list.

To start an expiration workflow, click Start this workflow, and then select the name of the workflow.

Note: This feature is only available if you are defining a policy for a content type that already has a workflow associated with it.